Tuesday, April 24, 2012

We visited Tannehill State Park near Birmingham this past weekend and hiked trails that took us to old furnaces that produced iron for the Selma Arsenal and Gun Foundry. During the Civil War, Selma was second only to Richmond, Va., in the production of arms for the Confederacy. The ironworks at Tannehill were attacked by federal troops on March 31, 1865, and the Battle of Selma followed on April 2, 1865. The long war ended days later.

This weekend, re-enactors will once again portray the Battle of Selma with living history events for school children on Thursday and Friday at the battlefield and a Civil War Writers' Forum on Friday evening at Carneal Arts Revive. One of the authors, James R. Bennett, wrote a book about Tannehill and the growth of the Alabama iron industry.

A battle skirmish and Battle of Selma Ball follow on Saturday, and the main battle that destroyed much on Selma on Sunday afternoon.

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Selma is among the oldest cities in Alabama and has the largest contiguous historic district.
It is known for its Civil War and Civil Rights history. The Battle of Selma was one of the last fought in the War Between the States, and the town was a center for the Voting Rights Movement in the 1960s.
Today, with a population of about 20,000, Selma is the largest town in the western Black Belt region. The Black Belt, named for the color of its soil, stretches across Central Alabama from Mississippi to Georgia.